On Oct. 4, Fumio Kishida became Japan’s 100th prime minister, succeeding Yoshihide Suga, who held the office for only a year. Kishida secured the top job by prevailing in the four-person race to lead the Liberal Democratic Party. On Oct. 31, he and the LDP will face a national election for the House of Representatives, the lower but more powerful chamber of the Japanese Diet. Together with its coalition partner, the Komeito Party, the LDP is expected to win decisively. The latest NHK pol

The philosopher Immanuel Kant famously said, “Whoever wills the end also wills … the indispensably necessary means to it that is in his control.” Put simply, when we set a goal, we ought to take the actions needed to achieve it. This is an essential maxim for our governments, and it should guide G-20 leaders when they meet in Rome at the end of October to confront the climate crisis. The world set a goal in the Paris climate agreement: to keep global warming within 1.5 degre

Do you know how to get immense thanks and respect from an innocent kid in a single day? First, in the morning, you gently take away her favorite toy, claiming it’s bad and unnecessary for her. In the evening, you give the very same toy back to her, claiming it’s an “all-new” toy with the most advanced features ever that pro toy users love. To pull off this feat, you have to prepare a lot, including a nice presentation on a big screen and plenty of complex charts that just

Soon half the world’s population will have been vaccinated for COVID-19. As of this writing, 49 percent, or 3.76 billion people, have received at least one dose. This is impressive considering that the first doses were given only ten months ago. Though much work remains, particularly in addressing vaccine inequality, the trajectory is favorable. By the end of 2022, the world could be over 90 percent vaccinated, which should bring the pandemic to an end. After a slow start, South Korea has

This has been a year marked by terrifying news about climate change: extreme weather, massive wildfires, persistent drought in some areas and catastrophic flooding in others. The sense of impending doom was made official when the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that the world is almost certain to blow past the target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement of holding the increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 19th-century level. That was

Lee Jae-myung, the presidential nominee of South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea, has odds of below 50:50 for winning in the election next March. This forecast is based on the results of recent opinion polls in which nearly 60 percent of respondents expressed desire for a change of power. A crucial variable is whether the opposition community will be able to produce a single candidate to take on the 57-year-old governor of Gyeonggi Province. Lee and the Democratic Party still ha

First came October’s ominous headlines from half a world away: China was suddenly darkening Taiwan’s air defense zone skies with record numbers of warplanes -- 150 sorties in the first two weeks of October. Their undeclared fly-by missions were far more menacing than Beijing’s eruptions of propaganda-machined war clouds. But on Oct. 13, in case Western policymakers didn’t get what is really at stake, the wizards behind Washington’s conventional wisdom curtains just

Traditionally, men have harbored prejudices against smart and capable women. Feminist scholars have pointed out how often a shrewd woman in a fairytale is called a “witch” or “wicked stepmother” by male writers. Chauvinistic social conventions describe astute and perceptive women only as “bad girls.” However, those “bad girls” have accomplished many splendid things with their creativity and competence. Recently, I came across an intriguing book, &

The Washington Consensus is on its way out. In a report released this week, the G-7 Economic Resilience Panel (where I represent Italy) demands a radically different relationship between the public and private sectors to create a sustainable, equitable and resilient economy. When G-20 leaders gather on Oct. 30-31 to discuss how to “overcome the great challenges of today” -- including the pandemic, climate change, rising inequality and economic fragility -- they must avoid falling bac

The post-World War II global institutional order is obsolete. This is not a recent development: The need for reform has been apparent for a long time. And yet, the necessary transformation is more comprehensive than many realize and more urgent than ever. The reasons are not difficult to discern. Power is being transferred to new (and more) actors. Nonstate actors have gained more influence. And international cooperation has shifted from a hard-law approach, based on clear rules and treaties,

Plans to survey chipmakers and keep tabs on the supply chain to head off further disruption highlight just how disconnected the US government is from the realities of a $500 billion industry that spans the globe. Instead, American diplomats would do well to work with allies to build an integrated real-time database that will last well beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. A request last month by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo for semiconductor companies to detail their sales, products, technology and

Around the world, governments are challenging the immense power of Big Tech, causing politically motivated showdowns between their officials and tech companies to become increasingly commonplace. In mid-September, just as voting began in Russia’s parliamentary elections, Apple and Google capitulated to ongoing government demands to remove from their online stores a smartphone app created by allies of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. To channel support away from the Kremlin’s prefer

On a recent Sunday morning, I went for a leisurely stroll at Seooreung, a Joseon royal tomb in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, just outside Seoul. Entering the compound of five royal tombs, my husband mused about his elementary school field trips to Seooreung. Pointing to the huge mound on which the twin tombs of King Sukjong and his second wife sit side by side, he said the kids would run up the mound and then roll down. Korea in the ’70s did not have many grass fields and there were signs o

By going officially and formally rogue, Poland may unwittingly have done the European Union a favor. In blatantly challenging the bloc’s legal authority, Warsaw is forcing the EU to decide whether it wants to become the “ever closer union” it claims to be, or to remain the malleable club of nations it actually is. Union or club -- either way the EU will have to make fundamental changes if it intends to survive in the long run. Last week’s judgment in Warsaw was the judic

At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen didn’t need to convince lawmakers that the company has a big problem. Republicans and Democrats were, for once, united on her side, at several points even calling her a “hero.” What they needed was direction. Luckily, Haugen gave that to them. Throughout the hearing she used the term “engagement-based ranking” to synthesize the complexities of Facebook’s problems into a si